Steve Roach / Vir Unis: Blood Machine

roau-bm.jpg (18k) Steve Roach / Vir Unis: Blood Machine
(GreenHouse Music - 2001)

Once again Steve Roach and Vir Unis unite their estimable powers, turning musical energies into the pumping hemo-electric Blood Machine. A complex kaleidoscope of fractal grooves and enveloping atmospheres meld to become what Roach refers to as "Elegant Futurism", an apt-enough handle.

Millions of protoplasmic globules swim in the tides of brisk pulsations as Dissolving the Code sets the pace for the wondrous earscapes which follow. Softly spiraling drifts are punctuated by a percolating rhythm as amoeba-like Evolution... well... evolves from one shimmering/thrumming essence to another. Similar motions flow through Impulse which shifts into a deeply-shadowed realm of low watery throbs.

Sludgy tribal-esque beats (and later, more-rapid-fire rhythm-injections) pump fluid streams through the vein-like patterns of Neurotropic's multilayered highs and lows. The fading resonance of that track seeps into the sparkling effervescence of Mindheart Infusion (12:20); activating percussion seems to dance around an ever-rising plume of vaporous synthstrands, all of which slips into a hushed zone before reconfiguring into yet another form, decorated with chiming updrafts.

An internal groove propels Neural Connection toward a hushed conclusion, from which closing piece, In the Marrow (5:15) emerges with another sputtering core immersed in amorphous swells.

This collaboration has been two years in the making (both Roach and Vir Unis mention the project in the interviews they did here in early 2000). If the creative geniuses in Hollywood decide to re-do yet another old film/TV show, I say they remake Fantastic Voyage (you know, where the miniaturized scientists and their itty-bitty spaceship get injected into some guy's bloodstream...) because the perfect soundtrack for very-visual bio-exploration is right here...

Like the body's own cyclic patterns, the 8.8 sounds of Blood Machine range from adrenaline-charged activities to much-needed restfulness. Seventy-three minutes of entrancing electro-organic varieties of shape-shifting tonality from Steve Roach and Vir Unis will send waves of neural excitement from your eardrums to your brain and throughout your system...

GreenHouse Music scores again; see also www.steveroach.com and www.virunis.com.

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This review posted June 30, 2001

AmbiEntrance © 2001-1997 by David J Opdyke (except CD cover art, rights retained by original owners).